With Photoshop Elements 6, the most popular photo-editing program on Earth just keeps getting better. It's perfect for scrapbooking, email-ready slideshows, Web galleries, you name it. But knowing what to do and when is tricky. That's why our Missing Manual is the bestselling book on the topic. This fully revised guide explains not only how the tools and commands work, but when to use them.

Photoshop Elements 6 is packed with new features. You get a new Quick Edit function, Windows Vista compatibility, improved RAW conversion, a handy Quick Selection Tool, and more. In fact, there's so much to the latest version that it can be quite confusing at times. Photoshop Elements 6: The Missing Manual carefully explains every feature the program has to offer by putting each one into a clear, easy-to-understand context --something no other book does!

Learn to import, organize, and fix photos quickly and easily.

Repair and restore old and damaged photos, and retouch any image.

Jazz up your pictures with dozens of filters, frames, and special effects.

Learn which tools the pros use -- you'll finally understand how layers work!

Create collages and photo layout pages for greeting cards and other projects.

Get downloadable practice images and try new tricks right away.

This guide progresses from simple to complex features, but if you're ready for the more sophisticated tools, you can easily jump around to learn specific techniques. As always, author Barbara Brundage lets you know which Elements features work well, which don't, and why -- all with a bit of wit and good humor.

Barbara Brundage

Barbara Brundage is the bestselling author of Photoshop Elements 4: The Missing Manual and a co-author of Digital Photography: The Missing Manual. She's been a member of Adobe's pre-release groups for Elements 3, 4, and 5 and has been teaching people to use Elements since it first came out in 2001.

This book gives a balanced look at all the features of Photoshop Elements, without going into a lot of depth on any one topic. It is aimed at beginners. It has a reasonable amount of detail on the most common activities of enhancing photos and retouching photos, but these make up only a small part of the book. It tells you about many less obvious problems you may not have realized you had, such as color cast and perspective distortion.

This book is specifically for Windows, and there is a Macintosh version available. I worked through the present book with the Macintosh program, and there's very little difference. Windows has an Organizer to manage your photos while the Macintosh program ships with Adobe Bridge, just like the full Photoshop CS3, but except for that you won't have any trouble using the same book on either platform.

The book is organized by task rather than by feature or tool. (An exception is a whole chapter on Layers.) The book is extensively cross-referenced; maybe too extensively. In the first half of the book I sometimes lost my place in the blizzard of cross-references and forgot what we were reading about. The chapter on selecting, although clear, was not well-integrated with the rest of the book. After reading it you know everything about selections except what they are good for.

There's a very thorough index, as we expect from the Missing Manual series. There were some puzzling gaps in the index. I suspected at times that it is an index of keywords; so if the book discusses a subject but doesn't call it by name then it might not show up in the index. For example, Perspective distortion is indexed, but only on p. 75 where the term is introduced and not p. 299 where the problem and its fix are discussed in detail. EXIF is not indexed even though it is discussed several places in the book.

The book goes beyond manipulating photos and tells you a good bit about what to do with your photos after your are happy with them. It goes into how to get high-quality printing, personalized merchandise, and web photo-sharing (although mysteriously Flickr is never mentioned).

Very Good Features:

Calibrating your monitor: its importance and the news that colorimeter prices have come down sharply.

Using layers to fix major exposure problems (very short section but very useful; I get much better results with this than with Brightness and Contrast adjustments).

Throughout the author gives you her take on the various tools, even going so far as to tell you never to use tool X because tool Y always does a better job.

Bottom line: I learned a lot from this book, even though I've been using Elements for years. It's a good book!

The author, Barbara Brundage, has been teaching Photoshop Elements since 2001, when it first came out, and has probably fielded every question that could be asked about the program. She has compiled this information in a very logical progression to guide you through the learning process for this program.

This book contains seven parts which cover every aspect of the program: that can be used in

Part One: A general introduction to the program including coverage of importing, managing, and saving your photos. It also includes rotating and resizing.

Part Two: Covered here are quick fixes, making selections, and, what is generally considered the heart of elements--layering.

Part Three: Here are included an extensive listing of approaches to retouching.

Part Four: This section contains of the various artistic elements that can be used in this program, including drawing tools, filters and creating text.

Part Five: Described here are a variety of ways to share your photos.

Part Six: There are additional supplements that can be used with the program such as graphic tablets and free stuff from the internet. There is also a discussion of the added features available in the full version of Photoshop--very helpful if you are considering an upgrade.

Part Seven: Here we have indices to find desired sections quickly, and also help for installation and troubleshooting.

This is a very comprehensive manual that will certainly help you to take advantage of all the tools contained in the Photoshop Elements 6 program.

Brundage is as great for the Mac as she was for the PC; thorough yet easy to read.

By Pain-doc

from Undisclosed

Comments about oreilly Photoshop Elements 6: The Missing Manual:

Elements-6 gave me the boost to switch from the Vista fiasco to the Mac. Here, at last, is the mini Photoshop to satisfy the great majority of graphics software users. PSE is not the most intuitive of programs, and the (welcome) inclusion of the Bridge browser makes it even less so. Praise the Lord -- Barbara Brundage has come to the rescue!

I've used her PSE books since version 3 for Windows and have had nothing but praise for them. This book for the Mac once again delivers as promised, taking you through the intricacies of Bridge, the numerous 3-finger shortcuts, and working with layers, with both authority and a pleasantly fluid writing style.

My one quibble is the publisher's reluctance to include a CD to reinforce the message of the illustrations provided on recycled paper. Rather than tediously downloading the material. I'd gladly pay a few more bucks for having a comprehensive tutorial instead of wasting endless time and effort on low-quality web images. Users unfamiliar with the RAW format in particular would be grateful for a 'non-missing CD'. Otherwise: highly recommended

This books explains the features of Photoshop Elements 6 but does not lead you step by step through the process of using the program.

I am trying to figure out layers. First of all, as another reviewer pointed out, the book does not tell you how to get photos into layers or to manage layers once they are there (whichever photo I click on becomes the background?!) Also, she lets you know that you can isolate an image on a photo and then make the background transparent but she never takes you through the steps of making it transparent.

I read and reread the chapter on layers and never was able to figure it out. I was very frustrated and disappointed and regret the $40 I spent on this book. I have ten days left on my Photoshop 30 day trial period. So far, it's not looking good.

This book has a serious deficiency. It needs several pages up front showing Icons=name so that it is easier to follow the book. To say, go to the Brush means nothing until you find the dumb thing -- and the search takes time. I bought the book so that I would not have to search for simple tools.